1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for identifying a fingerprint image, and more particularly, to a method for identifying a fingerprint image captured by an electronic device correctly and rapidly.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Because a fingerprint of a person is unique and invariable, the fingerprint identification technology has been widely used for personal identity verification. For example, the fingerprint identification technology can be used in many portable electronic products for security control. In general, for ensuring the quality of electronic products with a fingerprint identification function, product manufacturers usually perform many normal function inspections for the electronic product during the manufacturing process or after manufacturing in order to verify whether the electronic product works well and conforms to quality management requirements.
For example, an electronic device having a fingerprint identification function should be able to capture a clear fingerprint image and perform a fingerprint identification process on the captured fingerprint image. However, if quality of the captured fingerprint image is not well suited for the following identification process, this may result in inaccurate fingerprint identification. Therefore, for ensuring the electronic device having fingerprint identification function can accurately scan and capture the fingerprint image of a user, a scan function test is a common test item for such kind of electronic device. The conventional scan function inspection method is first to establish a fingerprint database of a tester or a specific fingerprint, and the electronic device (device under test) captures the fingerprint image after a tester, or a finger glove, a finger mold, or a fake finger, which having a specific fingerprint, sweeps on the electronic device. After that, the electronic device subsequently implements several identification processes, such as image pre-process, feature extraction, and fingerprint matching on the captured fingerprint image in order to examine if the captured fingerprint image is identical to the fingerprint image stored in the fingerprint database for realizing the inspection purpose. Thus, as the captured fingerprint image is identical to the fingerprint image stored in the fingerprint data base, this means the electronic device has a suitable scan function.
However, for an electronic device (device under test), the above-mentioned inextricable identification processes (feature extraction, image matching process) are too complicated and require large consumption of operation resources and operation time. In practice, the above-mentioned method can not provide efficient testing for mass production. Therefore, designing a proper test method with a simple operation and low cost for providing correctly testing procedures should be a concern in progressive system design.